News & Announcements

News | May 18, 2015

20 Years of Academic Partnerships

iCollege academic partner
iCollege reps Brenda Roth & Patty Coopersmith (center)
with Academic Partner Capitol College leaders



Since 1995, the NDU iCollege has been working with academic partner universities across the United States to accept 9, 12, or 15 graduate semester credits from the college's certificate programs.  iCollege grads who successfully complete one of our certificate programs have the option of over 30 current academic partners to consider for completion a Master's Degree, MBA, Doctoral program, or PhD in many different areas.  Most of our partner schools now offer online and part time options.  Some offer military or other discounts.



Our very first academic partners - Syracuse University and the University of Maryland University College (UMUC) are still very strong partners today and have accepted hundreds of iCollege grads into their programs.  Since those early days, we have maintained the number of partner universities between 30-40 schools across the nation, including in the southern and western U.S. 


DoD military and civilians attend the iCollege at no tuition, and Federal Agency students attend at a very low tuition rate.  Once their iCollege education is nearing completion, students can apply to a partner school, and if accepted, transfer the number of credits spelled out in our signed Memoranda of Understanding (MOU). This is not an automatic acceptance of the student, so he/she must still apply to the partner school, be accepted, and follow our partner's admission rules and other requirements.  Students in the DOD Information Assurance Scholarship Program (IASP) have their tuition pre-paid at the university partner.  Most students (or their organizations), however, are responsible to cover tuition and fees at the partner school.



Remember, this is a great way to use your iCollege credits to get you up to ½ of the way to a Master’s Degree.  The iCollege does offer one Master’s Degree of its own (Master of Science in Government Information Leadership), but this is a highly competitive program and focused on government.  If you are looking for a wider range of degrees, please consider attending one of our partner schools. 


A full listing of partner schools and the POC at each school can be found on our website, partner page at:  http://icollege.ndu.edu/Academics/AcademicPartners.aspx


Questions about the partner program should be directed to coopersmithp@ndu.edu.